Jake Bauers hit a three-run home run and Brice Turang added his 13th homer of the season as the Milwaukee Brewers used a six-run third inning to rally past the St. Louis Cardinals 8-4 on Thursday night in St. Louis. The NL Central leaders took four of five games in the series and kept their grip on first place. The scoreboard says rally. The structure says one club kept imposing its will while the other absorbed the damage.
Sal Frelick and Cooper Pratt each had RBI singles in the second inning to give Milwaukee an early 2-0 lead, and William Contreras capped the scoring with a sacrifice fly that brought in Jackson Chourio in the ninth. The Brewers didn’t just score in bursts. They kept stacking pressure, inning after inning, until the Cardinals were left chasing a game that had already slipped away.
Who Had the Upper Hand
Turang opened the decisive third with an RBI single before Bauers sent his 17th homer of the season into the seats in right, pushing Milwaukee to a 6-0 lead it never surrendered. Bauers is tied for the MLB lead with seven three-run homers. That’s what domination looks like in this setting: a lineup turning one inning into a lock on the result, while the other side gets forced into damage control.
Turang added a solo shot to center in the seventh to make it 7-4. The Brewers won four games in a series at St. Louis for the second time in franchise history and the first time since 2008. They were 59-34 with one series to go before the All-Star break. The numbers don’t flatter the hierarchy here. They just show who’s been collecting wins and who’s been getting worked over.
Who Paid the Price
Andre Pallante, now 10-6, allowed six runs on eight hits in five innings for the Cardinals. Logan Henderson, who improved to 3-1, threw 5 1/3 innings in his first start since May 22 after landing on the 15-day injured list with a lower back strain. He struck out four and allowed three runs on three hits. The Brewers got a starter back from injury and still had enough firepower to bury the Cardinals early. The Cardinals, meanwhile, had to absorb the consequences on the mound and in the standings.
Lars Nootbaar had an RBI single for St. Louis in the fourth, and Jordan Walker added a three-run homer in the sixth. Walker became the sixth Cardinals player to have 73 or more RBIs before the All-Star break since 1955. Even that burst couldn’t undo the six-run third, because the game had already been shaped by Milwaukee’s control of the middle innings.
The Schedule Keeps Rolling
The Brewers’ next game was set for Friday, when Brewers RHP Brandon Sproat, 3-4 with a 5.13 ERA, was to face Pirates RHP Braxton Ashcraft, 9-3 with a 3.24 ERA. Cardinals RHP Kyle Leahy, 7-4 with a 3.86 ERA, was scheduled to square off against Atlanta LHP Chris Sale, 9-6 with a 2.27 ERA, in a series opener Friday. The machine doesn’t pause. It just keeps moving from one matchup to the next, with players carrying the load and the standings sorting out who gets to claim the leverage.